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The Elephant

In the Mahabharata war, the Pandavas cannot defeat their teacher Drona. Bhima kills an elephant named Ashwatthama, which is also the name of Drona’s son, and shouts that Ashwatthama is dead. Urged by Krishna and Bhima, Yudhishthira, who never lies, confirms it.

In Kisari Mohan Ganguli’s translation, Yudhishthira “distinctly said that Aswatthaman was dead,” and said the word “elephant” indistinctly. Drona lost the will to fight and was killed.

The popular form of the line, Ashwatthama hatah, naro va kunjaro va, “Ashwatthama is dead, man or elephant,” is a later compression. It does not appear in the Sanskrit verses that tell the scene.

Speak the Pleasant Truth

Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat, na bruyat satyam apriyam. Priyam cha nanritam bruyat, esha dharmah sanatanah. Speak the truth. Speak what is pleasant. Do not speak an unpleasant truth. Do not speak a pleasant untruth. This is the eternal law.

The verse is from the Manusmriti, the ancient law book, chapter 4, verse 138.

Riding a Tiger

On January 7, 2009, B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, wrote to his board. He admitted that the company’s books showed cash and bank balances of Rs 5,361 crore, of which Rs 5,040 crore did not exist. “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten,” he wrote.

In July 2010 his lawyers told a court that he had never written the letter.

Not Telling the Patient

When a patient in India has cancer, relatives sometimes ask the doctor not to tell the patient. Doctors call this collusion. A 2018 study in the Indian Journal of Palliative Care found that “the prevalence of collusion was 37%, i.e., in more than one-third of the palliative care patients.”

The study, by Victor, George, Inbaraj and Norman, is titled “Benefit or Harm?” Patients under collusion had lower quality-of-life scores.

That Hard Edge

“Indians have a difficult time saying no or that you’re doing it the wrong way,” Kris Gopalakrishnan, a co-founder of Infosys, was quoted as saying in the American magazine eWeek.

The outsourcing author Mark Kobayashi-Hillary described what follows: “There is not that hard edge that says, if you’re going to fail, then you’d better communicate that right away.”

The Parrot

In one of the Akbar and Birbal tales, Emperor Akbar’s pet parrot has died. No courtier dares to tell him, because he has ordered that anyone who brings news of the parrot’s death will be hanged. Birbal goes to the emperor and says: “Jahanpanah, your parrot is neither eating anything, nor drinking anything.”

When Akbar asks whether the parrot is dead, Birbal replies: “I did not say it. You said it.”

Early Next Week

In February 2012, staff at Kingfisher Airlines had not been paid since December. Its chairman, Vijay Mallya, wrote to them that he had organized funding for their “seriously overdue salaries.” “I hope these efforts will be successful early next week,” he added.

In May he promised that pay would resume on May 9. That date passed. A new email promised salaries by May 15. Staff told Business Today: “The management intentions are questionable.”